An accountant is warning people to be wary if they received an “accidental tax refund” over the Easter/ Anzac holiday period and says it is likely the money will have to be paid back to the tax department.
Jason Topp of SMYD Chartered Accountants, posted a message on Facebook after he was contacted by a client questioning why they had suddenly received a refund from the Inland Revenue.
“He said: “I’ve had some money come into my account, do you know what it is?”
Topp said he put two and two together and assumed it was an issue connected to the IRD’s shut-down.
The IRD shut down its services on the Thursday before Easter and brought them back up on Friday at 8am as part of a major revamp of the tax system.
Topp said it appeared the IRD may have automatically refunded people with credit balances while updating their system.
He believed it was linked to those who had paid provisional tax to the IRD.
Provisional tax is a way of pre-paying a final year tax bill and is used by businesses to help smooth their tax costs.
“My assumption is as people have paid provisional tax in throughout the year, it has been seem as a credit balance and therefore refunded.”
A spokesman for the Inland Revenue said it was aware of the issue but it was not a problem with the system.
